Burnard: Minimum wage sense

President Barack Obama gave his State of the Union address on Feb. 12. I for one was glad to hear many of the proposals the president made. I thought they were common-sense proposals, many of them long overdue.

The suggestion to raise the minimum wage to $9 an hour was met with the standard GOP talking points that come up every time raising the minimum wage arises: It’ll cost jobs; Who’ll pay for it?; Young entry-level workers will be unable to get jobs; etc., etc., etc. Speaker of the House John Boehner gave an impassioned speech for the cameras about swamping out his daddy’s bar (so he knows entry-level jobs) and how this would cut out the bottom rungs on the ladder of success, thus impeding, presumably, the climb to become future millionaires and billionaires.

There’s only one problem with this. It isn’t true. These same old tired saws have been trotted out for as long as there has been a minimum wage, and studies have shown that the horror stories of what will happen don’t happen. Pat Garofolo of the political website Think Progress said in an article, “The history says that raising the minimum wage has little if any impact on job creation.” He points to a November 2010 study published in The Review of Economics and Statistics that found “no detectable employment losses from the kind of minimum wage increases we have seen in the United States.” Another study published in 2011 “found no impact on hours worked or employment levels.” Garofolo cites the seminal study of the minimum wage done by economists David Card and Alan Krueger, which found that job creation was actually strengthened by an increase in the minimum wage, and points out that this has been proven time and time again.

“[Sen. Marco] Rubio and [Sen. Paul] Ryan have it exactly backwards; raising the minimum wage results in higher wages and more purchasing power for workers, not job losses,” Garofolo wrote.

An example of this conundrum for Republicans can be found in that city they love to hate, San Francisco, which has a minimum wage of $10.55/hour. Its unemployment rate is 6.7 percent; in the rest of California, the rate is 9.8 percent. Kind of makes you think, doesn’t it?

The GOP and its rich backers would like you to believe that the minimum wage primarily affects teenagers looking to enter the workforce or find summer jobs. In actuality, 50 percent of people earning the minimum wage are over the age of 24, many with families. Based on a 40-hour-a-week job, or 2,008 hours a year, that comes to a whopping $14,558 yearly income on the current $7.25/hour minimum wage. How many readers out there think they could live on that, let alone support a family? This is also a women’s issue. 75 percent of minimum wage earners are women over the age of 24. Undoubtedly, a significant number of these women are single mothers. What kind of life can any of these wage earners expect to provide for their families?

The largest part of our economy relies on consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of the total. The money that would be paid to minimum wage workers would be put right back into the economy for everyday living expenses. This increases demand for durable goods, nondurable goods and services. This benefits every part of the spectrum of the economy. The millionaires and billionaires take the majority of their money and put it away in Swiss or Cayman Island bank accounts, which don’t benefit the economy of the U.S. at all. Well, maybe certain parts of the financial sector stand to benefit, but they’ve already shown that helping the economy is very low on their list of fun things to do.

Henry Ford believed that paying his workers a decent wage helped him in the long run because then they could afford to buy the cars they made, thus increasing his bottom line. An ever-growing number of economists seem to be rediscovering this theory. Across the board, conservative and liberal economists alike are calling to raise the minimum wage. The general consensus is that it should be raised to at least $12-$13/hour. In Australia, which has weathered the economic downturn better than most developed countries, has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the developed world. It also has a minimum wage of almost $16 (U.S.). Maybe it’s time to start thinking outside the box instead of blindly adhering to false talking points.

Katonka: The great health care fail

No matter how hard I tried, I could never make the high school’s baseball team. All 220 pounds of me could never run, jump, hit or pitch well enough to be selected to represent Westlake High School on the diamond. Eventually, even the sight of me at early spring tryouts was met with eye rolls of the coach who, to this day, I would love to beat within an inch of his life. Every year was met with the same result, always a disappointing beginning to the summer.

While not making the team might have had more to do with my love for recreational drugs, easy high school girls and alcohol, after a while, I realized that I was much better at partying and watching my hometown team lose, than actually playing myself. If a 17-year-old can cut through the clouds of smoke poring out of his mom’s minivan and reach the maturity of knowing he is not meant to be an athlete, then why can’t Democrats understand that socialized medicine is a big loser for them whenever it is attempted?

For conservatives, the battle lines drawn over health care reform have given the GOP the greatest gift since we were suddenly able to make continuous jokes about driving with Ted Kennedy anywhere near a body of water. The fact of the matter is that without the socialistic lean of the Democratic Party in regard to health care reform, some of the most influential conservatives of the past 20 years would have left a much less dramatic effect on both the movement and the country.

Let’s assume that the Clinton administration never pushed for health reform in the early 1990s. It is not much of a stretch to say that without the fear of socialized medicine, and having to listen to Hillary nag and screech her way threw the nightly news for months, the budget wouldn’t have balanced, and Newt would still be the name of your grandma’s favorite cookie.

Fast forward 20 years or so, and dramatic changes of political leadership are once again a direct result of failed health care policy. New conservative heavyweights such as Marco Rubio, Allen West, Susana Martinez, Michele Bachman and Chris Christie would not nearly carry the weight that they do. Not only can Republicans thank health care reform for these fresh new conservative faces, we can now look forward to an even brighter future of conservative leadership, paid for by the wasted political capital of the 111th congress.

The sole difference between the health care debate of the early 1990s and now, and the greatest reason for new conservative optimism, is the reality that what started as the ultimate pipe dream of hippies, unrepentant terrorists and inner city welfare peddlers is that now the law of the land. If the mere threat of a universal health system in the United States was able to produce the Republican revolution that held the Clinton administration at bay, it failed to produce leadership at all levels of government.

With Obamacare now a legal reality, the fading of the issue from the mind of the 1996 electorate, which lead to four more stimulating years of Clinton, is not likely to repeat in 2012. Unless you assume that every voter who rejected this type of legislation in the past is dead, you have to accept the fact that they will, in all likelihood, reject socialized medicine again this fall. By upholding the law, the Supreme Court could quite possibly kept the issue alive long enough to achieve Republican majorities in all three branches of government.

If the past is any indicator, the staunch conservative products of health reform will have a coming out in 2012 that would make Anderson Cooper’s closet as jealous as it has been since Anderson went to Columbia with the Secret Service. As I found out in high school that partying more often than not prevents success, the right should be heartened by the fact that wherever socialized medicine pokes its head out of the ground, fresh new conservative icons emerge to knock it down.

Osburn: Romney seeks VP

If you’ve ever seen HBO’s “Game Change” or read the book, you know that choosing a vice presidential candidate can make or break a presidential campaign. The movie, with questionable accuracy, depicts the trials and tribulations of Sarah Palin during the 2008 presidential campaign. Although Palin may have “fired up” the Republican Party’s conservative base, the campaign failed to stop the Democratic tide in 2008.

Perhaps that is why Sen. John McCain recently said on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” that when picking a VP, presumptive nominee Mitt Romney should pick a person he “knows and trusts” and who is “well-qualified” to take his place.

It must first be noted that Romney will most likely not make a pick for at least two months, possibly longer. Research by the University of Virginia Center for Politics shows that presidential candidates historically have chosen their running mates several days before their party’s conventions. In 2008, McCain made the Palin announcement on Aug. 29, three days before the convention. Trending along the same lines was President Barack Obama, who chose Joe Biden two days before the Democratic Convention. If history repeats itself, it is safe to bet that Romney will make his announcement sometime after Aug. 20, but before Aug. 27, when this year’s GOP convention starts.

The question on everyone’s mind is whom he will pick. Many questions surround the issue. Will Romney try to balance the ticket by choosing someone from outside the Northeast, perhaps from a swing state? Will he go with someone who is part of the Washington “establishment,” or someone who represents a change? Will he try to choose someone with a more conservative reputation? Each potential prospect addresses these issues in one way or another. Although the list is long, perhaps the three most salient candidates are Rep. Paul Ryan, Sen. Marco Rubio and Ohio’s own Sen. Rob Portman.

Representing the southeast Wisconsin area, Ryan has served in the House since 1999. He has become one of the leading activists for the Tea Party movement and has risen within the ranks of the party to become the House Budget Committee chairman. Ryan also has become an influential figure on the economy, frequently criticizing the Obama administration’s lack of commitment to the issue. Ryan’s budget plan, which would reduce taxes at all income levels, cut discretionary spending to 3.75 percent of the gross domestic product by 2050 and reform Medicare into a voucher based program, was hailed by fiscal conservatives of the party. Wisconsin is a swing state and Ryan is a social conservative, two reasons Romney might want to select him. However, Ryan’s polarizing stance on health care and budget issues may not sit well with independents.

Rubio’s name has been thrown into the ring as well. Rubio is the son of Cuban immigrants and is also a leading Tea Party activist. Rubio, a former attorney, has spent most of his life in politics, quashing beliefs many critics have about him not being experienced enough to hold the vice presidential position. Rubio served in the Florida House of Representatives for ten years, before being elected to the Senate in 2010. In the Senate he has been a leading voice behind tax reform and recently was in the news for sponsoring a Republican version of the DREAM Act, which would grant temporary residency to illegal aliens in college or in the service. Picking Rubio may appeal to Latino voters and the more conservative members of the GOP.

Ohio Sen. Rob Portman. Portman is the possibly the most qualified person for the job. Also a former attorney, Portman served in the House for 12 years representing Ohio’s 2nd District, which consists mostly of suburban Cincinnati. Portman also held two cabinet-level positions under the George W. Bush administration. From 2005-06 he served as the U.S, Trade Representative. From 2006-07, he served as the director of the Office of Management and Budget, which assists the president in budgetary preparation and supervision.

While not the greatest campaigner and a Washington insider, Portman’s credentials will be difficult for Romney to pass up.

Ben Osburn is a graduate student in political science at the University of Toledo. Email him at letters@toledofreepress.com.